Two bouncing bombs languishing at the bottom of a Scottish loch are set to be recovered by daring divers so they can be displayed in two top museums.

A team from the British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) will plunge into the ghostly depths of Loch Striven to rescue the Highball bombs - so they can take pride of place in Brooklands Museum in Surrey and the de Havilland Aircraft Museum in Hertfordshire.

They were used for testing ahead of the world-famous RAF raid on dams held by the Germans during WWII, launched from RAF Scampton, which crippled the Nazi war effort.

During the raid itself, cylinder-shaped bombs, called Upkeep bouncing bombs, were used.

But but the one at the bottom of the loch is a spherical bouncing bomb called a Highball. Archive footage of Bomber Command testing the Highball bombs was used in the 1955 film 'The Dam Busters’, as details of the actual dams bomb used by the RAF was still top secret.

Read More

Best of Lincolnshire Live

They were the naval or anti-ship version of the cylindrical shaped Upkeep bouncing bombs used by the RAF in the actual Dambusters raid in May 1943, both having been designed by Sir Barnes Wallis to bounce over water.

But it is archive footage of the Highballs being tested at Loch Striven which feature in the 1955 ‘The Dam Busters’ film, as details of the actual dams bomb used by the RAF was still top secret.

More than 200 of the bombs, codenamed Highball by the military, were tested at Loch Striven in Argyll and Bute. They were intended to be used on enemy ships but never became operational and they lie scattered on the loch bed to this day.

Now a team of 11 British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) scuba divers from all over the UK are preparing to raise two of the bombs this July.

This scuba diving team is set to plunge into Loch Striven on the hunt for bouncing bombs

The aim is to put two Highballs on display in time for the 75th anniversary of the Dambusters raid next year.

Leading the team is diver Mark Paisey.

"We like diving with a purpose. This is an expedition where we're bringing together people from all over the UK and it's nice to have a result to it at the end. The historical element is a bonus," he said.

Read More

"We intend to map the two areas where the Highballs lie using a side scan sonar to see exactly how many there are. We need a fair degree of experience for the dive. One of the areas where the bombs are is 35m deep and the other is 55m."

The project has received the blessing of Sir Barnes Wallis’ daughter Mary Stopes-Roe, 89.

She said: “I think it’s absolutely splendid. I'm very happy to lend my support to this project and wish the team the best of luck with the dive .

"It's a fantastic project and it would be a fitting tribute to my father to have the Highballs in a museum."

The Highball project came about after Mark qualified as a BSAC first class diver last year and was on the lookout for something to test his skills.

He was put in touch with Dr Iain Murray, author of Bouncing-Bomb Man: the science of Sir Barnes Wallis and a trustee of the Barnes Wallis Foundation of which Mary Stopes-Roe is also a trustee.

Dr Murray, a lecturer at the University of Dundee, has spent the last decade trying to find a way of raising the bombs from the bottom of the loch, which lies off the Firth of Clyde about 30 miles west of Glasgow.

Bouncing bomb testing on Loch Striven

His prayers have finally been answered now the BSAC team have secured the necessary funding and lifting licence to make the project a reality.

A dive took place in July 2010 but at that stage Dr Murray had no means in which to raise the bombs, which do not contain explosives.

Sir Barnes produced various prototype bouncing bombs, the dams bomb or Upkeep, the anti-ship bomb the Highball, the Grand Slam which was a 22,000lb earthquake bomb, the Tallboy which was a 12,000lb earthquake bomb, and a 4,000lb earthquake bomb purely for aerodynamic testing.

The Brooklands Museum in Weybridge, Surrey, has every one of these on display except a Highball. Several Upkeeps are on display, as are Tallboys and Grand Slams at other UK museums.